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Mr Trippit, of Frailey Hill in Woking, said he stepped back into the road with the pipe gun: “They were still advancing so I fired it into the air,” he added.

“It didn’t seem to faze them. A couple of them stood their ground. There was a lot of swearing and then I heard someone say ‘get him with a pole’ so I went back to the car.”

'Loud bang'

Mr Trippit said he passed the pipe gun through the car window to his friend, who again loaded it and handed it back.

He then went back towards the group and chased one of them off. Mr Trippit said he then fired the gun into the ground intentionally.

“There was a loud bang,” he said. “I went back to Pollard Road, jumped in the car and we drove off.”

When asked by defence barrister David Castle if Mr Trippit constructed the device used to fire the two shots he replied "no".

The alleyway leading from Maybury Hill to Alpha Road was taped off by police

The court also heard railway detonators were found by Surrey Police while searching Mr Trippit’s bedroom.

But he said they were left in a plastic cylinder on December 20, 2013, by a friend who worked as a train driver for Network Rail and was leaving to live in China.

Mr Trippit said he did not open the cylinder or try and examine any of its contents: “I didn’t know what it contained,” he told the court.

“I phoned him [the friend] and said ‘you’ve left a pot of yellow things and your glasses’ and he said he’d have to come back and get them another time but he never did.”

Mr Trippit has admitted one charge of being in possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence but denies one count of knowingly being in possession of an explosive substance without lawful excuse.